An email that recently made the rounds among campground owners encouraged them to “renew” their advertising on the Go RV Park website. In instances that were called to my attention, Maryland campground owners were provided a link to a page where they could see their advertising located, along with a $49.00 renewal price. The email also stated that the website had “acquired the Maryland Campground and RV Park Directory Inc. and SW Publications Nationwide.” At first glance, $49.00 sounds like a good deal, and the fact that your park (and every other park whose data has been harvested) is already listed makes the “renewal” make sense.

Take a second glance before reaching for your wallet. The “Maryland Campground and RV Park Directory Inc.” does not exist to my knowledge, although it sounds both legitimate and oddly similar to the directory of the Maryland Association of Campgrounds. Then, “SW Publications Nationwide” is another company that appears to be both nonexistent but very similar to “Southeast Publications”, a well-recognized vendor within the campground industry. Many of us tend to miss the little details, and many people who read “SW Publications” mistakenly interpreted that as “Southeast Publications”. Finally, the GoRVPark.com website sounds confusingly similar to the GoRVing.com website that is a partnership of the RVIA, the RVDA, and National ARVC.

In addition to your own listing and compiled listings of every other campground, the website features banner ads for industry giants that include KOA, ELS, Good Sam, Bass Pro Shops, and Walt Disney World’s Fort Wilderness Campground. This certainly suggests legitimacy, but who says that any of those businesses paid for, authorized, or might even be aware of their ad space (at least until now)?

Back to the $49.00 “renewal” price, that would truly appear to be a bargain. The company’s website offers a $149.00 advertising fee and says that “This $149.00 yearly price is for a LIMITED time only. RV Parks, Campgrounds & RV Resorts who sign up NOW will NEVER be subject to the regular annual cost of $499.00 per year.” Interestingly enough, this exact wording appears on the earliest appearance of the website on the Internet Archive, when it was apparently launched in 2010. How can this possibly be a “LIMITED time” offer? To further suggest its authenticity, the website claims that “Go RV Park is the #1 Google ranked portal and intuitive network of websites for RV information.” Beyond the fact that this gobbledygook is total nonsense, a Google search for “RV information” shows the website totally missing in action, at least on the first 10 pages of search results.

Fortunately, the assessment that I provided to the Maryland Association of Campgrounds was shared with its membership as well as National ARVC, which issued a press release warning members to read their emails carefully before responding to this type of offer.

Another type of email that is not specific to the campground industry but seems to continually make the rounds are the ones that scare recipients into believing that their domain names are ready to expire and need to be renewed immediately. Only the fine print (which many people either skim or do not read) explains that the senders are not domain name registrars but are selling highly suspect “traffic generator software tools”, implying that failure to pay for the “search engine optimization service by the expiration date, may result in the cancellation of this search engine optimization domain name notification notice.” (Don’t think for a minute that anything you do will stop these email notices!) Along with a number of payment links and the recommendation to “Act immediately”, the recipient will typically misread the words “Failure to complete your SEO domain name registration search engine optimization service process may make it difficult for customers to find you on the web.” This statement means absolutely nothing, but many people think that their domain name registration is ready to expire, or that their listing on Google is ready to suddenly disappear, and pay the fee (typically $84.00 or $86.00) before they realize their mistake. Fortunately, most reputable email service providers (such as Gmail) send these solicitations into spam folders.

Another email scam is the one that sells compiled email lists. They usually state that the lists are “opt-in verified, 100% permission based and can be used for unlimited multi-channel marketing.” One that I recently received began with the words, “Greetings of the day! Would you be interested in acquiring an email list of ‘RV Owners List’ from USA? (sic)” Another that came in within the last 48 hours offered “100K Email Marketing only for $160 USD, regular price $360 USD” or “900+ Million World Wide Email List only for $75 USD, Regular Price is $450 USD (sic).” Unless you like receiving spam yourself, want to get your email account closed, want to have an email marketing account terminated, and want to be reviled by most recipients, do not even think of buying or using a compiled list. Again, most of these solicitations end up on spam folders themselves.

Confusion over email scams like these is quite valid, as evidenced by the dozens of emails that clients have forwarded to me, wondering whether or not the emails are legitimate. Scammers like these profit tremendously if only a small percentage of recipients fall for the bait, and knowledge like this is your best defense against becoming victimized.

One of my clients recently contacted me, concerned that his New Hampshire campground was listed without his prior knowledge or authorization on several websites that purported to be online campground directories. He discovered this when one of the sites contacted him on behalf of a camper who wanted to make a reservation to stay at his park and another contacted him to “claim” his listing. At first glance, these would appear to be good things, wouldn’t they? Any resource that is sending you business is generally welcome to do so. After all, your campground is probably sent online traffic from a variety of referring sites – everything from Go Camping America to your state association website to Good Sam to your local tourism association.

In the instances that my client described, something just didn’t seem right.

Over the years, a number of websites have sprouted up that are essentially directories of local businesses. Many of these have evolved from so-called “yellow pages” companies, and their business model is to persuade gullible business owners to pay for enhanced listings. In my own instance, about a third of these local directories lists my company’s street address correctly, but then locates us in the next town. Another third list our fax number as our phone number. Do I care? Not really, because these sites get close to zero traffic, and they have little if any effect – either positive or negative – upon the SEO of my company’s official website. These websites are working with compiled data, obviously harvested from unreliable sources.

The sites that my client described were an entirely new breed. Also based upon compiled data, their business plans are no longer focused upon selling enhanced listings but in providing reservation services where they collect referral or transaction fees. These can be problematic indeed. My client has gone through a fairly labor-intensive process of getting his business de-listed from several of these sites. The more that I looked into them, the better my understanding of how my client’s instincts were probably right on target.

Campground reservations are accurately perceived as a multi-billion dollar business, and companies that would like a piece of the action are suddenly coming out of the woodwork. Funded with infusions of venture capital, the focus is on generating income from the collection of processing fees on those reservations, either in real-time (with campgrounds that get on board) or with the type of delayed booking that initially caught my client’s attention. One such site posts that it “anticipates” use by 1 million campers per month, even though it does not currently show up as even a blip on the radar at Alexa, the leading provider of comparative website traffic analytics.

What is the problem with these sites? Well, first of all there is a problem with compiled data. How often is the data updated and how accurate is the initial source? (Think back to those local sites that list my business in the wrong town or with our fax number as our primary phone number, where incorrect data tends to perpetuate itself.) On one of these sites that my client called to my attention, I perused the campgrounds listed in my home state of Massachusetts. I am intimately familiar with the industry players in my home state, and I found fictitious listings, listings for municipal parks that have nothing to do with camping, listings for campgrounds that have been out of business for several years, and listings for summer camps.

The second problem is the potential for these sites to compete with your own official website and your own chosen online reservation engine, a situation that can only serve to confuse consumers and that could inflict harm upon your business. I know that I do not want any other company representing my business, and I would be feverishly protective against any threats to my company’s unique online identity. Particularly if pricing (that may or may not be accurate) or reservations enter into the equation, the potential for problems is very real.

Thirdly, if you choose to get on board, be sure to read the fine print. The “Terms of Service” listed on one of these websites, when copied and pasted into a Word document, consisted of over 20,000 words that ran 42 pages in length. That’s a far cry from the old-fashioned handshake agreement of years past and probably reason to proceed with caution.

Keep in mind that any online directories or search engines built upon compiled data (even Google itself!) need businesses like yours as much as you need them. Without listing real businesses that consumers are seeking, they have no product to offer. It is your decision whether or not to get on board with any particular website. Understand the potential risks and benefits, and then make a decision based upon what is best for your business and how it can most effectively meet the needs and expectations of its core clientele.